Do Histories of Humiliation Lead to Social Anxiety Disorder?
Humiliating experiences, especially in public, or if they come to public knowledge and are repeated, potentially contain elements capable of generating a Social Anxiety nucleus. On the one hand, humiliation, not necessarily physical aggression (it may be just verbal), contributes to self-depreciation and self-devaluing. On the other hand, the action of the one who humiliates contributes to the humiliated person’s formation of the concept of the “other” as strong and aggressive. Through the generalization process, one’s self-concept becomes impregnated with little personal value and the impression of impotence in relation to anyone. This combination of a feeling of personal fragility and the perception of the other as being strong and hostile is very common in Social Anxiety Disorder.
